From the Manufacturer
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Imagine a universe where you can travel freely - being able to
look up and down climb ancient ruins traverse across oceans jump
off ridges and duel enemies - all in real time non-linear play.
This visual world will not only astound you but will pull you
right into its universe. You will embark on a journey to an
island of evil-ridden dungeons villages and castles as you seek
the Moonlight which had been stolen by a cult of insidious
worshippers of evil.
Review
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Your beloved friends have drowned. Your possessions lie forever
buried in the briny deep. Your honor is trampled. Your home, the
prosperous kingdom of Verdite, faces annihilation at the hands of
a power-hungry warlock's advancing armies. Verdite's last line of
defense is the legendary Moonlight , a long lost weapon of
immense magical capacity. You are Alexander, royal knight and
lone survivor of a perilous sea voyage to the island of Melanat,
resting place of the Moonlight . Your objective is all too
clear: find the blade and escape.
This difficult, lengthy, first-person role-playing adventure
thrusts you into Alexander's soaking shoes. Behold the
fully-realized, seamless 3-D world that is King's Field: cold
ocean laps at your ankles while stars twinkle overhead and
Melanat is everything in between. Prepare for a great deal of
swashbuckling and dungeon crawling. Real-time combat demands
cunning and dexterity: once Alexander unleashes a full-force
attack, he must regroup and gather his strength for the next
strike. The same is true of casting magic spells. As expected,
heavier weapons and particularly powerful enchantments require
longer periods of recovery. There is little friendly discourse in
the game, and the rare conversations with the handful of
Melanat's kind-hearted denizens consist of passively listening to
their problems and advice, along with the occasional buying and
selling of goods.
Fully polygonal graphics with minimal texture ping make for
King's Field's clean, unpretentious look, though an overzealous
use of earth tones in the visuals proves dreary and unsettling.
Since the game is based on a mid-1995 Japanese release, its
graphics look dated by today's high standards. However, the
unfaltering polygonal consistency of King's Field is mesmerizing
after extended play. Indeed, few games are this visually
absorbing.
The game's inconsistent frame rate hovers between average and
slow depending upon screen activity, while a forgettable
synthesized music score detracts from the game's visual punch -
though the sound effects are lush and vividly believable (most
notably the guttural howls of Melanat's fauna).
King's Field is very challenging, and refuses to be completed in
a day, or even a week or a month. This non-linear, immersive
adventure role-playing game is filled with elegant scenery,
memorable monsters, and many miles of frontier to explore. While
King's Field may seem unpleasantly action-oriented to the
traditional role-playing gamer, and the avid adventurer might
find it sluggish, open-minded gamers should be more than pleased
with King's Field's execution - if only because of the sheer size
and grandeur of the setting. --Greg Kasavin
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
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- Disc plus hard plastic protective replacement case only. Disc condition ranges from flawless to scratched but is guaranteed to work..